


Waking Nightmare

by Unit25A



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Game Spoilers, Strap yourselves in lads we are going on a feels trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:24:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unit25A/pseuds/Unit25A
Summary: It's said that in their sleep, humans would relive moments of their life. Reliving one's darkest, most dread-filled moments was known as a "nightmare". 2B was grateful that she didn't sleep and could not dream. Not when reality felt too much like a waking nightmare.





	Waking Nightmare

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**> / Hello there!** **  
** **Lately, I have been really into NieR: Automata. It's really captured my imagination! Since I'm studying abroad at the moment and don't have my PS4 with me, I have been watching Kyle McCarley, 9S's English voice actor, play through it on Youtube. I'd recommend his videos and streams, he's a great guy! Here's a very angsty little thing I thought up after finishing watching him play through route A or B, I can't remember which. I hope you enjoy it!**

**\- Unit25A**

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**Waking Nightmare**

 

_ "What if the sword kills the pen, _

_ What if the God kills the Man, _

_ And if he does it with love, _

_ Well then it's death from above, _

_ And a death from above,  _

_ Is still a death _

_ I don't wanna live, without you, _

_ I don't wanna live, without you, _

_ I don't wanna live, I don't wanna live _

_ Without,  _

_ You" _

\- "The Pen and the Sword"- Regina Spektor

 

It's said that in their sleep, humans would relive moments of their life. Reliving one's darkest, most dread-filled moments was known as a "nightmare". 2B was grateful that she didn't sleep and could not dream. Not when reality felt too much like a waking nightmare.

Even though she is always expecting the order- always listening for it, always waiting in silent, tortured paranoia- it knocks the wind out of her every time it comes in. At this stage she's lost count of how many times and she can't bring herself to try and remember. It never gets any easier. Her jaw clenches, and she screws her eyes shut. 

"Understood" she rasps, and then makes her comms go dark. She feels her hands tighten around the gilded handle of Virtuous Contract. As if of their own accord, her feet drag her forward towards where he's standing, waiting for her. 

The dull, ever-present pain in her chest starts to throb. 

He's watching the birds flittering between the trees, golden sunlight reflecting off his white hair. The humans called these white birds "doves". He has told her this many times but each time feels like the first. As far as he's concerned, she remembers bitterly, each time IS the first. 

As soon as he hears the delicate footsteps of her high-heeled boots behind him, he turns to her, a wide smile beaming on his face. 

Oh God, it hurt.

He closes the distance between the two of them, and wraps one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulder, bringing her down into a warm embrace. He envelopes her lips in a soft kiss, and it fills her with equal parts joy and revulsion. She simultaneously wants to push him away and pull him closer, as she is both repulsed and drawn in by his touch. She can't stop herself from returning his kiss (she never can) and she deepens it too quickly, too hungrily, too desperately. She savours his taste, his smell, the feeling of his silky hair under her gloved hand. She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve this moment of pure light, or any others that he has given her. She doesn't deserve him and it's too much to hope that someday she will. 

He pulls away, and looks at her with his brows knitted into a delicate frown of concern. He strokes her cheek, and it feels like both a soothing caress and a stinging burn.  She can see he can tell there's something wrong. Even without scanning her, it's almost as if he can sense the aching inside her, though there is no way he could understand why. YoRHa have made sure of that. Not for the first time, 2B finds herself questioning why they would even manufacture a model with the depth of perception and feeling they cursed 9S with.    
"Is something the matter?" he asks her, his voice soft and gentle as ever. 

She can't answer him, as she doesn't trust herself to open her mouth to speak. Instead she gives him a small smile, and moves her hand from his hair to the side of his neck, cupping the synthetic skin with her silk gloved hand and stroking it with her thumb lightly while the other hand grips the handle of the sword so tight she feels the alloy in her fingers start to creak. 

How many more times would she relive this horror?

She drives the sword through his chest with all her might, grazing her own side as the blade passes. It hurts, oh God it hurts, but it's nothing compared to the pain that grips her own chest like a vice and threatens to crush her.  She feels his legs go weak underneath him, and she catches his light frame easily, lowering him to the ground and holding him in her arms as if in a tender embrace. She does not want to look into his eyes but she forces herself to. Seeing the horror, the disbelief and the betrayal work its way across his beautiful features is only a fraction of the punishment she deserves. 

"I'm sorry" she whispers, unable to stop the hot tears from flowing down her face and mingling with his blood. "But you knew too much." 

It would be so easy if he could just hate her, if he could just use his last breath to curse and despise her fully. Then maybe it would be easier. Then maybe she could stop loving him. Maybe she could even hate him back. But things were never that easy, not where this damned Scanner Model was involved. With a shaking hand, he reaches for 2B's own and clasps it with the last of his meager strength, a wide-eyed, pleading expression on his face but she can offer no explanation, give no comfort to him, only sob as the last of his life drains out of him through the hole she has put in him. 

"No blackbox detected" her Pod announces, as if giving a weather report.    
It was over for now. And soon, it would start all over again. 

She wishes she could just wake up. 

 

~The End~

 

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**> / Thanks very very much for reading!**

**This turned out a hell of a lot more melodramatic than I had intended it to be... But then again, NieR: Automata is a very dramatic game. I hope you enjoyed it, and please feel free to tell me what you thought of it!**

**Thanks again!**

**\- Unit25A / <**

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